Robleswrites
BIOGRAPHY

Peggy Robles-Alvarado

Peggy Robles-Alvarado is a Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Literature, a 2023 Inaugural Fellow of the Latinx Playwrights Circle Summer Jam Program supported by The Dramatist Guild, and a recipient of the 2023 Bronx Cultural Visions Grant supported by the Howard Gilman Foundation for development of her solo poetic theater experiment titled MUSTBE>THAN21GRAMS. In October of 2023, her play “SUAVE” was selected to be part of PlayTime! supported by The Dramatic Question Theater and she was invited to become a playwright for Faces of America #5 as part of The Playground Experiment. Her monologue, “Recycle & Return”, is published in their anthology.

Peggy is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, an Atticus Review Poetry Contest winner, and a BRIO award winner who earned writing fellowships from CantoMundo, Desert Nights, The Frost Place, VONA, The Ashbery Home School, and NALAC. With advanced degrees in education and an MFA in Performance Studies, this three-time International Latino Book Award winner authored Conversations With My Skin, and Homage To The Warrior Women. She directed the poetic play LIVE BIG GIRL whose first version sold out performances in 2017 and whose latest version LBG: A CHAIR THAT FITS is forthcoming in April of 2024.

As a performance poet, her work has been featured in Solfest-A Latine Theater Festival, The Dodge Poetry Festival, HBO Habla Women, Lincoln Center, Pregones Theater, Harlem 9 Presents: 48 Hours En El Bronx, Smithsonian Institute, Pen America Festival, Harvard University, Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Pratt Institute, Columbia University, and NYU Latinx Poetry Festival.

Peggy’s poetry has been highly anthologized and appears in The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, ¡Manteca! Afro- Latin@ Poets, great weather for MEDIA, What Saves Us Anthology, The Soul Sister Revue Anthology, and Poetry Unbound. Online Peggy has been published in Poets.org, Tribes.org, The Quarry at Split This Rock, The Common, 92Y.org, Centro Voices, and NACLA.org. She also served as guest editor for The Acentos Review Performance of Breath issue.

Through her 501(c)(3), Robleswrites Productions Inc., (robleswritesproductions.com) she created Lalibreta.online, The Abuela Stories Project, Mujeres, The Magic, The Movement, and The Muse, and many events that foster intergenerational communal healing and literacy.

To heal, to reflect, to connect – through the power of words

Robleswrites

More about Peggy​

As a performance poet her work has been featured in HBO Habla Women, Lincoln Center Out Of Doors, Pregones Theater, Harlem 9 Presents: 48 Hours En El Bronx, Smithsonian Institute- Museum of the American Indian, Pen America World Voices Festival, Harvard University, Association of Writers and Writing Programs Tampa, FL, Pratt Institute, Columbia University, and New York University Latinx Caribbean Poetry Festival.

In 2012 Peggy became the recipient of the Mujeres Destacadas Award, a recognition given annually by El Diario-La Prensa to the most outstanding women in the Latino community and The Womyn Warrior Award presented by Casa Atabex Aché. Her first book, Conversations With My Skin, was awarded second place in the category of Best Poetry Book in English in the 2012 International Latino Book Awards. In 2013, her second book Homenaje A Las Guerreras / Homage To The Warrior Women was awarded second place for Best Bilingual Poetry Book and Best Cover Design.

In 2013 she also was awarded The Tato Laviera Poetic Teamster Award given by the Teamsters Union Local 237. In 2016 Peggy was named one of the 25 Most Influential Women of the Bronx, a BCA Arts Fund, and Spaceworks Bronx Community Artist Grant recipient. In 2017 she was awarded the position of Graduate Student Trustee and received the Graduate Student Engagement Fund Grant at Pratt Institute. In 2018 she earned the Excellence in Academic Achievement Award and graduated Pratt Institute with a 4.0 G.P.A.

Creator of Robles Writes Productions, Lalibreta.online, and The Abuela Stories

Peggy has been featured The 2014 Voto Latino Power Summit at John Jay College, Poets and Writers Fifth Annual Connecting Cultures Reading, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx Community College, Hunter College, Hostos Community College, The 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival, The Nuyorican Poets Café, The Milford Fine Arts Center, Fairfield University, Brecht Forum, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, Michigan State University as well as other culturally notable venues throughout and beyond the tri-state area.

She has been published in The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, The Bronx Memoir Project, The Other Side of Violet, and Latina Voices: Struggles and Protest in 21 Century USA. Luna Luna Magazine, Upliftt.com, Dealmas.org and Sofrito For Your Soul. She has also participated in several panel discussions focused on contemporary Latina writers through The Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Sangre Viva Arts Alliance, Fordham University’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, Comadres y Compadres Writer’s Conference and The New York City Latina Writers Group.

Peggy is continuously generating and supporting original thought-provoking women centered literary events that provide a platform for emerging artists though Robleswrites Productions Inc. She co-wrote and co- produced Soledad Speaks: A Theatrical Spoken Word Journey that successfully debuted to five sold out standing room only audiences in 2013 at The Iati Theater and was selected to be part of the 2014 BADD!ASS Women Festival at The Bronx Academy Of Arts and Dance. She also created and produced Women In Creative Rebellion: An Annual Spoken Word Poetry and Networking Event that began in 2013 in the Bronx to celebrate the creativity of women. Since then Women In Creative Rebellion has expanded to create an online literary journal titled –La Libreta- that publishes poetry, poetic audio performances, and artwork by emerging and established intergenerational writers and artists of color who identify as women.

Through Robleswrites Productions Inc. she has created several workshops for writers from her home borough of the Bronx and beyond. Peggy has also directed sold out performative readings of her latest anthology Mujeres, The Magic, The Movement, and The Muse and the poetic play Live Big Girl. In 2018, The Abuela Stories Project was awarded first place for Best Latina Themed Book and second place for Best Poetry Book by Multiple Authors from The International Latino Books Awards. In 2020, Peggy launched the online digital archive of The Abuela Stories Project to continue to document stories of these complex and unique matriarchs.

A BCA Arts Fund and Spaceworks Bronx Community Artist grant recipient

Published in 92Y’s #wordswelivein, NACLA, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies and The Bronx Memoir Project.

AWARDS

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Robleswrites

Jerome Hill Foundation Fellowship in Literature (2021)

Robleswrites

25 Most Influential Women in the Bronx Award Presented by The Bronx Times (2016)

Robleswrites

Areito Award for Poet of the Year at the 7th Annual Taino Awards (2015)

Magic Making is not for Pendejas